A flair for writing vs. a thirst for fame

RAPPER 50 Cent has just signed a publishing deal with MTV in which he will head his own imprint, G-Unit Books. The books will be a series of novellas with the action and pace of “a fast video game or movie,” all depicting “the truth about The Life: the sex, guns and cash.” (Someone should tell him to stop being coy and just say My Life. Not a secret, 50.) He won’t actually write anything but will “have creative control.”

This announcement comes on the heels of the publication of reality-TV star Nicole Richie’s novel, “The Truth About Diamonds.” Richie explained that she was going to write a memoir but it was more “exciting to make things up,” and there are any number of elementary schoolchildren who would enthusiastically concur, though they are seldom rewarded with a book party.

Which pretty much brings us to the Pamela Anderson franchise -- OK, two novels, with a recurring character who is basically Pamela Anderson with a different name. The great thing about Anderson’s books is that no one cares if they’re fiction or fact because her life (and physique) blur the line between the two so beautifully.

I always imagine her saying to her girlfriends about her real life, “no one could make this stuff up,” even as she’s complaining about the “lies” in the tabloids. And then when she goes and adds her own thinly disguised autobiography into the mix, calling it fiction -- well, it must just get a tad confusing at the Anderson place.

Some celebrities don’t actually write their own novels; they hire a ghostwriter. I was once contacted by anheiress to a famous American fortune who wanted to know if I was interested in writing her story. She found me through the family of her boyfriend, who wasn’t really her boyfriend but her “spiritual husband whom she met and married in an astral plane over the pyramids.” She also hated her family and seemed skeptical when I explained that, yes, she could repeat unflattering anecdotes about them in private, but on the page it was called libel. Then we had a brief, fruitless discussion about how truth is sometimes open to interpretation.

She wanted me to write about “all her lives, every incarnation,” while only paying me for one life story, and cheaply at that. The thing is, all this living made her very humorless and rather touchy, making me think that the only reason she would have had so many lives was because her countrymen couldn’t stand another second of her unpleasant self, taking the opportunity to, say, push her off a cliff or serve her as the first course when the tribe went cannibal in the lean times.

Now, if I might get personal for a minute, I’m particularly pleased to say that Jenna Jameson and I share something significant. A life event. We both have had books on the New York Times bestseller list, and both books had titles that began “How to Make.... “ Except hers had the words “porn star” while mine had “quilt.”

A consequence of her choice versus mine is that she lives in a gated house in Nevada, while my house is accessible to every food-drive kid, magazine subscription seller, Jehovah’s Witness and occasional homeless person walking down the street. But that is the only difference between us; I would venture to say there are enough similarities for us to have our own literary roundtable.

With this recent spate of celebrity authors, the question asked in a recent New York Times article was: Does writing a book “legitimize” stardom?

Jon Liebman, chief executive of the outrageously successful management and production company Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, said, “I don’t think people will take you more seriously if you put your name on top of a book.” He suggested that, if being taken more seriously is your goal, you should get a role in an independent film.

With that piece of excellent advice, I’ve decided to forget this literature racket, head off to Sundance and angle for an independent film role. I even have a few ideas of my own about the movie -- I mean, film -- that I’m looking for. I’m thinking gritty, unsparing, very street; something with Hong Kong wire work; something ironic, with sex (but never in the bedroom, preferably in a public restroom). Something with puking, and someone sitting on the throne, or someone sitting on the throne engaged in casual conversation. Something that lets me smoke, and I don’t say a lot because I’m older, so I have to stare into space, endlessly ruing the day.

Then I have an encounter with a younger man, get high with the younger man, or my daughter (whichever), and have some kind of liberating life lesson that allows me to see menopause as “a good thing.” You know, like a choice. And, if at all possible, I’d like the whole story to be told in reverse.

Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.